A Bit More Detail

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• Hamilton police announces the arrest of local anarchist Peter Hopperton in connection with the actions of a crowd bent on vandalism on that city's Locke Street. CBC has it.


• Queen's University is participating in a summit with the city of Kingston on how students and long-term residents can be accommodated in the changing city. Global News reports.


• Attacks by right-wing groups in the Berlin district of Neukölln make many locals worried. DW reports.


• The small Chinese centre of Sidangkou, in the area of Tianjin, has become a world centre of saxophone production. The New York Times reports.

Heavy rain and cool weather thinned out crowds of partiers at the annual street party near Queen's University, with an estimated 2,000 revellers taking to the street Saturday night.

The number of partiers who crammed the street had numbered as many as 8,000 in previous years, prompting the university to cancel this year's annual fall homecoming in hopes of putting an end to the unsanctioned street party.

This year, Kingston Police made about 60 arrests on Saturday night. Constable Mike Menor said the majority of arrests were for breach of the peace, drinking in public, obstructing police and a few related to drug activity. Police also made 23 arrests in the lead-up to the party on Friday night.

Efforts over the past three years by the university, police and local citizens to make the outdoor booze-up less appealing have had little effect. After this year's gathering, the university announced that it would be examining how best to stop the unsanctioned event on Aberdeen Street out of concern for the safety of the 9,000 or some revellers who pack the area. There was also concern about the damage it was doing to the university's reputation.

A local emergency room doctor warned this fall that ”loss of life is inevitable,” unless the tradition was stopped.

Last month, Queen's, known for its strong school spirit and large alumni network, contacted past students to get their feedback on a possible solution to the street party.

”University officials, city leaders, police and the [Alma Mater Society] agree that this event that occurs at the same time as homecoming cannot be permitted to continue,” that message said.

This year police handed out more than 600 fines, mostly for liquor offences and arrested 138 people, about double the number of the previous year. Officials expressed concern that the character of the crowd had changed to include more high school students, older men and fewer people associated with the university.

The riot is cancelled. In a desperate effort to end out-of-control street partying, Queen's University today suspended Fall Homecoming Weekend, one of its most venerable traditions.

"Something very precious and fragile is at risk--our hard-won reputation as a university," principal and vice-chancellor Tom Williams said in suspending the event for at least two years, beginning next fall.

This past fall's event saw a wave of violence, intoxication and mischief that resulted in at least 54 arrests and hundreds of tickets for public drinking and noise complaints.

Kingston police said the crowd, estimated at 6,500, was smaller than last year's, despite thousands of unofficial invitations issued via the Internet to students across the province.

Williams says that beginning next fall, the event will be replaced by May reunions, after classes have ended. The question is whether gate crashers will keep coming in September anyway.

"There will still be a football game," said Kingston police Insp. Brian Cookman. "Is that going to be a flashpoint for those who want to have a (street) event?"

Fall Homecoming Weekend is a decades-old tradition for the 167-year-old school. Between 5,000 and 7,000 alumni return annually to attend reunions, official dinners and receptions, and a Queen's Golden Gaels football game. Former students, some celebrating the 50th and 60th anniversaries of their graduation, parade around the field at half-time.

In recent years, however, student parties in the nearby off-campus housing district have overshadowed formal events, drawing between 5,000 and 10,000 young people to central Aberdeen St.

In 2005, the crowd rolled a car and set it on fire. This year, in late September, a customer at a Subway fast-food restaurant was sent to hospital in a coma.

He regained consciousness a month later with undetermined brain damage. A visiting Ottawa student is charged with aggravated assault.

"From 2005 to 2008, the notoriety of the event caught hold," Cookman said today.

"In the electronic age, with Facebook and YouTube, it is easy to reach across Canada and into the United States," he said. "It really (caught) us off-guard."

A pilot program at Queen's University promoted as a tool to help students embrace diversity is being defended by administration and a student leader who say it's not an attempt to quash freedom of speech.

As part of its ongoing efforts to increase inclusivity, the university in Kingston, Ont., trained and installed six student facilitators to work with first-year students living in campus residences starting in September.

They were tasked with spotting "spontaneous teaching moments" concerning issues of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ability and social class, and to respond - either actively by posing questions to spur discussion, or more passively through activities like poster campaigns or movies.

Such moments may very well occur in cafeterias or common rooms, and it's possible the facilitators might then step in, said vice-principal academic Patrick Deane.

"It's been suggested ... these people are expected to act as thought and speech police. It's exactly the opposite," he said.

"What they're there to do is encourage students not to censor each other, not to silence each other in different ways, but to have a respectful conversation and dialogue."

The distinction between public and private space becomes foggy within student living spaces, he acknowledged.

"In the residence setting, it's perfectly possible that students who are behaving in a manner that's disrespectful would have it pointed out to them," he said.

"(But) to suggest that they are in some way empowered to monitor the way students speak and call students into account for things they might have said absolutely is out of the purview."